Openly Gay Mormon Leader, Mitch Mayne

The progress to LGBT equality in the mainline Protestant churches, and in Europe, should by now be familiar. The Anglican communion and the Swedish Lutherans have openly gay and lesbian bishops; the Methodists in the US and the UK are freely discussing recognition for out and partnered queer clergy, a move already agreed by US Lutherans and Presbyterians, and practiced for years by the United Church. What has been less widely reported, has been progress also in some more unexpected groupings, including Evangelicals – and Mormons. Mitch Mayne, for instance, was recently elected at a Mormon leadership post in San Francisco:

Early on in life, Mitch Mayne knew exactly who he was.

He would race home from school to watch reruns of “Star Trek” and swoon over his crush, Captain Kirk. At 8, after his parents converted, he was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a faith he embraced. Even after he drifted away from the LDS Church following his parents’ divorce, he came back to Mormonism on his own in his mid-20s.

It is where he feels spiritually at home, irrespective of the fact that, for the past 10 years, he’s been openly gay.

“I’m a man that lives in two worlds that a lot of people don’t think intersect,” Mayne said. “Both sides of myself exist in me. It’s part of my DNA, part of my makeup.”

Actively Mormon and openly gay: It’s the sort of combo that might leave people wondering. After all, the LDS Church teaches that homosexuality, specifically if same-sex attractions are acted upon, is a sin. And the church has actively backed measures to ban same-sex marriages.